TO the American mind the Kaiser is the personification of Germany.
He is the arch enemy upon whom the world places the responsibility
for this most terrible of all wars. I have sat face to face with
him in the palace at Berlin where, as the personal representative
and envoy of the President of the United States, I had the honor
of expressing the viewpoint of a great nation. I have seen him
in the field as the commanding general of mighty forces, but I
also have seen him in the neutral countries through which I passed
on my return home and in my own beloved land---in the evidence
of intrigue and plotting which this militaristic monarch has begotten
and which is to-day "the Thing," as President Wilson
calls it, which has brought the American people face to face with
kaiserism in the greatest conflict of all history.

What manner of man is he? What is his character? How much was
he responsible for what has happened---how much his General Staff
? What of the Crown Prince and what of the neutral peoples and
their rulers whom Germany has intimidated and would fain subjugate
if it suited her purpose? These are the questions I shall attempt
to answer out of my experiences in Germany and my contacts with
the rulers of other countries in my journeys to and from Berlin
and Washington.

To illustrate the craft of the Kaiser, I believe I can perform
no better service to Americans than to reveal an incident which
has not hitherto been published. It occurred at the New Year's
reception of 1914 when the Ambassadors of all the foreign countries
represented at the German court, were ranged in a large room at
the Palace. They stood about six feet apart in the order of their
residence in Berlin. The Kaiser and his aides entered the room,
and the Emperor spoke a few minutes to each envoy. He tarried
longest with the Turkish Ambassador and myself, thereby arousing
the curiosity of the other diplomats who suspected that the Kaiser
did more than merely exchange the greetings of the season. He
did.

What the German Emperor said to me interests every American
because it shows his subtlety of purpose. The Kaiser talked
at length to me about what he called Japan's designs on the United
States. He warned me that Mexico was full of Japanese spies and
an army of Japanese colonels. He also spoke about France,
saying that he had made every effort to make up with France, that
he had extended his hand to that country but that the French had
refused to meet his overtures, that he was through and would not
try again to heal the breach between France and Germany!

All this was in 1914, six months before the outbreak of the
European War. Little did I know then what the purpose was back
of that conversation, but it is clear now that the Emperor wished
to have the government of the United States persuaded through
me that he was really trying to keep Europe at peace and that
the responsibility for what was going to happen would be on France.
The German is so skilful at intrigue that he seeks even in advance
of an expected offensive to lay the foundation for self-justification.

But the reference to Japan and alleged hostility against us
on the part of fanciful hordes of Japanese in Mexico made me wonder
at the time. There were many evidences subsequent to that New
Year's Day reception of an attempt to alienate us from Japan.
As a climax to it all, as a clarification of what the Emperor
had in mind, came the famous Zimmermann note, the instructions
to the German Minister in Mexico to align both Japan and Mexico
against us when we entered the war against Germany!

Plotting and intriguing for power and mastery! Such is the
business of absolute rulers.

I believe that had the old Austrian Kaiser lived a little while
longer, the prolongation of his life would have been most disastrous
both for Austria and Hungary. I believe after the death of Franz
Ferdinand at Sarajevo and after a year of war the German Emperor
and autocracy were brooding over a plan according to which, on
the death of Francis Joseph, the successor should be allowed to
rule only as King or Grand-Duke of Austria, the title of Emperor
of Austria to disappear and German Princes to be placed upon the
thrones of Hungary and of a new kingdom of Bohemia. These and
the king or grand-duke of Austria were to be subject-monarchs
under the German Kaiser, who was thus to revive an empire, if
not greater, at least more powerful, than the empires of Charlemagne
and of Charles the Fifth. Many public utterances of the German
Kaiser show that trend of mind.

Emperor William deliberately wrote and published, for instance,
such a statement as this: "From childhood I have been influenced
by five men, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Theodoric II,
Frederick the Great and Napoleon. Each of these men dreamed a
dream of world empire. They failed. I have dreamed a dream of
German world empire and my mailed fist shall succeed."

Could any declaration of a life's ambition be more explicit?
It seems impossible for human ambition to stand still. Either
a man loses all stimulus of self and becomes as spiritless as
a fagged animal or ambition drives him always on---he is never
content with any success achieved. The millionaire to whom the
first million, when he was a boy, seemed the extreme limit of
human wealth and desire, presses on insatiably with the first
million in his pocket, more restless, more dissatisfied, than
the hungry farmer's boy who first carries his ambitions to the
great city.

When these zealous, scheming men gain the power of kingship,
they usually bring disaster to their country. Their subjects find
no compensation in the personal ambitions which hurry a nation
into the miseries of war. Better Charles II, dallying with his
ringletted mistresses, than an Alexander the Great; better Henry
the Fourth of France, the "ever-green gallant," than
Frederick the Great, bathing his people in blood. "Happy
nations have no history."

William the Second, the present German Emperor, might well
be called the Restless Emperor. He is never satisfied to remain
more than a few days in any place or in any occupation. He commands
his armies in person. He has won distinction as a writer and a
public speaker. He is an excellent shot. He has composed music,
written verses, superintended the production of a ballet, painted
a picture; the beautiful Byzantine chapel in the Castle of Posen
shows his genius for architecture; and, clothed in a clergyman's
surplice, he has preached a sermon in Jerusalem. What ruler in
all history has exhibited such extraordinary versatility ?

In my conversations with the Emperor I have been struck by
his knowledge of other countries, lands which he had never visited.
He was familiar not only with their manners, customs, industries
and public men, but with their commercial problems. Through his
conversation one can see the keen eye of the Hanseatic trader
looking with eager envy on the trade of a rival merchant. The
Emperor, incidentally, while instinctively commercial, has an
inborn contempt, if not for the law, at least for lawyers. In
October, 1915, for instance, he remarked to me, "This is
a lawyers' war, Asquith and Lloyd George in England, Poincaré
and Briand in France."

In appearance and conversation Emperor William is very manly.
His voice is strong, with a ring in it. He is a good rider. Following
the German custom, he puts on his nightshirt every afternoon after
lunch and sleeps for two hours---for the German is more devoted
to the siesta than the Spaniard or Mexican. The hours of the Berlin
Foreign Office, for example, were from eleven to one and from
four to eight. After a heavy lunch at one o'clock all the officials
took a nap for an hour or two. Also, the hours of the bank where
I did business were from ten to one and from four till six. This
meant that after six o'clock the clerks had to sit until perhaps
eight making up the books for the day.

In 1916, the Olympic games were to have taken place at Berlin,
and in September, 1913, before sailing for Germany, I attended
a luncheon at the New York Athletic Club, given by President Page,
with the members of the German Commission who had come to America
to study athletics and to see what could be done in Germany so
that the Germans could make a good showing at the games in their
own city.

After my arrival in Germany one of the members of this commission
told me that it was impossible, he believed, to organise the Germans
as athletes until German meal and business hours had been changed.
He said that with us in America young men leaving business at
four-thirty, five or five-thirty, had time in which to exercise
before their evening meal, but that in Germany the young men ate
so much at the midday meal that they required their siesta after
it, and that they did not leave their offices until so late in
the evening that exercise and practice were impossible.

On the Emperor's table his wine glasses or rather cups are
of silver. Possibly this is because he has been forbidden by his
physician to drink wine. The Germans maintain the old-fashioned
custom of drinking healths at meals. Some one far down the table
will lift his glass, look at you and smile. You are then expected
to lift your glass and drink with him and then both bow and smile
over the glasses. As the Emperor must reciprocate with every one
present, his champagne and wine are put in silver cups in order
that those drinking wine with him do not see that he consumes
no appreciable quantity of alcoholic liquor on the occasion of
each health drinking. Some people in America may have often wished
for a similar device.

The Emperor is out of uniform only on rare occasions. Occasionally,
when in a foreign country, he has appeared in civilian dress,
as shown in the accompanying photograph, taken in 1910 at the
small town of Odde in Norway, where he had landed from his yacht.
He appears to much better advantage in uniform than in civilian
attire. Although uniformed while at sea as an Admiral, his favourite
uniform is really that of the Hussars. In this picture he is accompanied
by Baron von Treutler, Prussian Minister to Bavaria and Foreign
Office representative with the Kaiser. Von Treutler is a German
of the world. I met him at the Great General Headquarters, at
the end of April, 1916, when the submarine question was being
discussed. He came to dinner several times at the Chancellor's
house, undoubtedly reporting back what was said to the Emperor,
and I believe that his voice was against the resumption of ruthless
submarine warfare and in favour of peace with America. Shortly
after this period he fell into disfavour and went back to occupy
his post of Minister in Munich.

In conversation, the Emperor reminds one very much of Roosevelt,
talking with the same energy, the same violence of gesture and
of voice so characteristic of our great ex-President. When the
Emperor talks all his attention is given to you and all his mental
energy is concentrated on the conversation. In this violence of
manner and voice he seems not at all German. The average German
is neither exuberant nor soft-spoken.

His favourite among his ancestors is William of Orange. Once
he attended a fancy-dress ball in costume and make-up copied from
the well-known picture of that Prince. The Emperor is strongly
built and is about five feet nine inches tall. He sits well on
his horse and walks, too, with head erect and shoulders thrown
back---a picture of military precision.

A friend of mine who was present at Kiel with his yacht, in
1910, tells me that when all the yachts and warships had been
assembled along the long narrow waterway which constitutes that
harbour, with the crews lined up on deck or manning the yards,
with bands crashing and banners floating, the Hohenzollern
slowlysteamed into the harbour and passed lazily and
majestically through the waiting ships. Alone on the upper bridge
stood the Monarch, attired in full military uniform, with white
coat and tight breeches, high top boots, shining silver breastplate
and silver helmet, surmounted by an eagle, the dress of the Prussian
Guard Regiment so dear to those who portray romantic and kingly
rôles upon the stage, a figure on whom all eyes were fixed,
as splendid as that of Lohengrin, drawn by his fairy swan, coming
to rescue the unjustly accused Princess. And, alas, the Germans
like all this pomp and splendour. It appeals to something in the
German heart and seems to create a feeling of affection and humility
in the German breast.

When I talked at length one day with President Wilson on my
visit to America in October, 1916, he remarked, half to himself,
in surprise at my tale of war, "Why does all this horror
come on the world? What causes it?" "Mr. President,"
I answered, "it is the king business."

I did not mean nominal kings as harmless as those of Spain
and England. I was thinking of the powerful monarchs. A German
republic would never have embarked on this war; a German Congress
would have thought twice before sending their own sons to death
in a deliberate effort to enslave other peoples. In a free Germany
teachers, ministers and professors would not have taught the necessity
of war. What German merchant in a free Germany would have thought
that all the trade of the East, all the riches of Bagdad and Cairo
and Mosul could compensate him for the death of his first-born
or restore the blind eyes to the youngest son who now crouches,
cowering, over the fire, awaiting death? For there was no trade
necessity for this war. I know of no place in the world where
German merchants were not free to trade. The disclosures of war
have shown how German commerce had penetrated every land, to an
extent unknown to the best informed. If the German merchants wanted
this war in order to gain a German monopoly of the world's trade,
then they are rightly suffering from the results of overweening
covetousness.

Experts in insanity say that the Roman Emperors as soon as
they attained the rule of the world were made mad by the possession
of that stupendous power. The sceptre of Emperor William is mighty.
No more autocratic influence proceeds from any other monarch or
ruler. But you will say how about our President. in time of war?
Great power can safely be given to a president. Our presidents
have all risen from the ranks. Usually they have gone through
the school of hard knocks. And there are ways of keeping them
abreast of the people.

It is told that hidden from public view, crouched down in the
chariot in which the successful Roman pro-consul or general drove
triumphantly through the crowded streets of Rome, was a slave
celebrated for his impertinence, whose duty it was to make the
one honoured feel that, after all, he was nothing more than an
ordinary mortal blessed with a certain amount of good luck. Probably
as the chariot passed by the forum the slave would say, after
a thunderous burst of applause from the populace: "Do not
take that applause too seriously. That is the T. Quintus Cassius
Association whose chief received a hundred sesterces from your
brother-in-law yesterday, on account, with a promise of a hundred
more in case the Association's cheers seemed loud and sincere."

So in America the press, serious and comic, takes the place
of the humble slave and throws enough cold water on the head of
any temporarily successful American to reduce it to normal proportions.
Besides, the President knows that some day he must return to the
ranks, live again with his neighbours, seek out the threads of
a lost law practice or eke out a livelihood on the Chautauqua
circuit in the discomfort of tiny hotels, travelling in upper
berths instead of private cars and eating on lunch stools in small
stations instead of in the sumptuous surroundings of presidential
luxury. These are sobering prospects.

Kings, on the other hand, come to look on their subjects as
toys. A post-card popular in Austria and Germany showed the old
Emperor, Francis Joseph, seated at a table with a little great-grandnephew
on his knee, teaching the child to move toy soldiers about on
the boards; and it is unfortunately true that the same youngster---should
the system of the Central Empires be perpetuated---will be able
to move his subjects across the map of Europe just as he did the
toy soldiers on his great-grand-uncle's table. He will be able
to tear men from their work and their homes, to seize great scientists,
great chemists, great inventors---men who may be on the eve of
discoveries or remedies destined to rid the human race of the
scourge of cancer or the white plague---and send them to death
in the marshes of Macedonia or the fastnesses of the Carpathians
because some fellow-king or emperor has deceived or outwitted
him.

In a monarchy all subjects seem the personal property of the
monarch and all expressions of power become personal. This extends
throughout all countries ruled by royalty.

When, for example, a member of the royal family dies, even
in another country, it must be lamented by the court circle of
other lands. Here is the official notice sent to all diplomats
and members of the Imperial German Court on the occasion of the
death of the Queen of Sweden.

"The Court goes into mourning today for Her Majesty the
Queen-Mother of Sweden for three weeks up to and including the
19th of January, 1914.

"Ladies wear black silk dresses, for the first fourteen
days, including January 12th with black hair ornaments, black
gloves, black fans and black jewelry; the last eight days with
white hair ornaments, grey gloves, white fans and pearls.

"Gentlemen wear the whole time a black band on the left
sleeve. Civilians wear with the embroidered coat, during the
first fourteen days, including January 12th, on occasions of
Grand Gala, black buckles and swords with black sheathes. During
the last eight days bright buckles; on occasions of 'Half Gala'
gold or silver embroidered trousers of the color of the uniform
and in the one as in the other case gold or silver embroidered
hat with white plume; with the 'small' uniform, however, black
trousers (or knee-breeches, black silk stockings, shoes with
black bows and the 'three-cornered' hat with black plume). During
the first fourteen days gentlemen wear black woolen vests and
black gloves, in the last eight days black silk vests and grey
gloves.

"By command of His Majesty the Emperor, mourning will
be suspended for New Year's Day and the 17th,and 18th of January."

So, it is apparent what a close corporation all the royal families
make and the peoples are simply viewed as the personal property
of the ruling princes. In his telegram which the German Kaiser
wrote to President Wilson on August tenth, observe that all is
personal. The Kaiser says, "I telegraphed to His Majesty
the King, personally, but that if, etc., I would employ
my troops elsewhere . . . . His Majesty answered that he thought
my offer . . . ...

He speaks of the King of the Belgians "having refused
my petition for a free passage." He refers to "my Ambassador
in London."

This telegram shows, on the other hand, another thing,---the
great ability of the Kaiser. Undoubtedly he knew why I was coming
to see him---to present the offer of mediation of President Wilson---but
from our conversation I do not think that he had even in his mind
prepared the answer, which sets forth his position in entering
the war.

He said, "Wait a moment, I shall write something for the
President." Then taking the telegraph blanks lying on the
table, he wrote rapidly and fluently. It was a message in a foreign
language, and, whatever we may think of its content, at any rate
it is clear, concise, consecutive and forceful.

The personal touch runs through that extraordinary series of
telegrams in the famous `Willy-Nicky" correspondence between
Kaiser Wilhelm and the last of the Romanoffs, discovered in Petrograd
by Herman Bernstein. These reveal, moreover, the surpassing craft
of the German Kaiser. He was the master schemer. Touting for German
trade, always for his advantage, he twists the poor half-wit of
the Winter Palace like a piece of straw.

Emperor William was not satisfied with a quiet life as patron
of trade. As he studied the portraits of his ancestors, he felt
that they gazed at him with reproachful eyes, demanded that he
add, as did they, to the domains of the Hohenzollerns, that he
return from war in triumph at the head of a victorious army with
the keys of fallen cities borne before him in conquering march.

One-tenth of Frederick the Great's people fell, but to the
poverty-stricken peasant woman of Prussia, lamenting her husband
and dead sons, did it matter that the rich province of Silesia
had been added to the Prussian Crown? What was it to that broken
mother whether the Silesian peasants acknowledged the Prussian
King or the Austrian Empress? Despots both. And what countless
serfs fell in the wars between the King and the Empress! I once
asked von Jagow when this war would end. He answered, "An
old history of the Seven Years' War concludes, 'The King and the
Empress were tired of war, so they made peace.' That is how this
war will end." Will it? Will it end in a draw, to be resumed
when some king feels the war fever on him? No, this war must end
despots, and with them all wars!

It is all such a matter of personal whim. For instance before
Bulgaria entered the war on the side of Germany, even the best
informed Germans predicted that King Ferdinand would never join
Germany because of an incident which occurred in the Royal Palace
of Berlin. This is how it happened:

It is the custom for one monarch to make his pals in the King
business officers of his army or navy. Thus the German Emperor
was General Field Marshal and Proprietor of the 34th "William
the first, German Emperor and King of Prussia" Infantry,
and of the 7th "William the Second, German Emperor and King
of Prussia" Hussars, in the Austro-Hungarian Army; Chief
of the "King Frederick William III St. Petersburg Life Guards,"
the 85th "Viburg" Infantry and the 13th "Narva"
Hussars, and the "Grodno" Hussars of the Guard, in the
Russian Army; Field Marshal in British Army; Hon. Admiral of the
British Fleet and Colonel-in-Chief 1st Dragoons; General in the
Swedish Army and Flag Admiral of the Fleet; Hon. Admiral of the
Norwegian and Danish Fleets; Admiral of the Russian Fleet; Hon.
Captain-General in the Spanish Army and Hon. Colonel of the 11th
"Naumancia" Spanish Dragoons; and Hon. Admiral of the
Greek Fleet.

The King of Bulgaria was Chief of the 4th Thuringia Infantry
Regiment No. 72, in the Prussian Army. As per custom, on a visit
to Berlin he donned his uniform of the Thuringian Infantry. He
had put on a little weight, and military unmentionables, be it
known, are notoriously tight. So as he leaned far out of the Palace
window to admire the passing troops, he presented a mark so tempting
that the Emperor, in jovial mood, was impelled to administer a
resounding spank on the sacred seat of the Czar of all the Balkans.
Instead of taking the slap in the same jovial spirit in which
it was given the Czar Ferdinand, a little jealous of the self-assumed
title of Czar, became furiously angry---so angry that even the
old diplomats of the Metternich school believed for a time that
he never would forgive the whack and even might refuse to join
Germany. But Czar Ferdinand, believing in the military power of
Germany, cast his already war-worn people in the war against the
Allies, much to the regret of many Bulgarian statesmen who, having
been educated at Robert College, near Constantinople, a college
founded and maintained by Americans, and having imbibed somewhat
of the American spirit there, were not over-pleased to think of
themselves arrayed against the United States of America.

But there is no monarch in all Europe who is more wily than
Czar Ferdinand. At a great feast in Bulgaria at which Emperor
William was present, Czar Ferdinand toasted the Emperor in Latin
and alluded to him as "Miles Gloriosus"---which
all present took to mean "glorious soldier"; but the
exact Latin meaning of "gloriosus" is "glorious"
in its first meaning and "boastful" in its second, a
meaning well known in Berlin where, at the "Little Theatre,"
in a series of plays of all ages, the "Miles Gloriosus"
of Plautus had just been presented--a boastful, conceited soldier,
the "Miles Gloriosus," the chief character of
the comedy.

Nothing illustrates more vividly the belief of the royal families
of the Central Empires in their God-given right to rule the plain
people than those few words of Maximilian written before his ill-fated
expedition to Mexico. Speaking of the Palace at Caserta, near
Naples, he wrote, "The monumental stairway is worthy of Majesty.
What can be finer than to imagine the sovereign placed at its
head, resplendent in the midst of these marble pillars, to fancy
this monarch, like a God, graciously permitting the approach of
human beings. The crowd surges upward. The King vouchsafes a gracious
glance, but from a very lofty elevation. All powerful, imperial,
he makes one step towards them with a smile of infinite condescension.
Could Charles V, could Maria Theresa appear thus at the head of
this ascending stair, who would not bow their heads before that
majestic, God-given power?"

What was the condition of the people under Maria Theresa, whom
Maximilian spoke of as possessing a power that, according to him,
was so God-given no one could fail to bow the head before her
majestic presence? The peasants, under her rule, were practically
slaves, as they could not leave the lord's lands nor even marry
without his permission, nor could they bring their children up
to any profession other than that of labourer. In other words,
the children of the slave must remain slaves.

Poor Maximilian! He was a brother of the late Emperor Francis
Joseph and a member of that Kaiserbund and royal system which,
while America was busy with domestic difficulties between the
North and South, sought to wrest from Mexico her liberty. I wonder
if the Mexicans have forgotten the incident and its implications.

But one-man power always fails in the end. No man, king or
president, whatever he may himself think, has a brain all powerful
and all knowing. There is wisdom in counsel. Too much of some
favourite dish may lead to indigestion and that to bad judgment
at a critical time and disaster. Napoleon III, just before 1870,
was suffering from a wasting disease and so allowed himself to
be ruled by the beautiful, narrow, fascinating, foolish Spanish
Empress whom he gave to the French in a moment of passion because,
as she said to him, "The way to her room lay through the
church door." Colonel Stoffel, the French Military Attaché
to the Berlin Embassy, wrote confidentially report after report
to the Emperor telling him of the immense military strength of
Prussia and of her readiness for immediate war. But most of these
reports were afterwards found unopened in the desk of the doting,
sick and fallen Emperor.

For, after all, however divine the King, Emperor or Kaiser
may consider himself, he is but a vulnerable human being-and no
accident of birth should give even a small number of people on
this earth into the hands of a single mortal.

.

CHAPTER II

WHO DOES THE KAISER'S THINKING
AND WHO DECIDED ON THE BREAK WITH AMERICA?

BECAUSE the German Emperor possesses talents of no mean order,
because of his fiery energy, because of the charm of his conversation
and personality, his ambitions for world conquest are most dangerous
to the peace of the world.

Certainly of all the ruling houses of the world, the Hohenzollerns
have shown themselves the most able, and of the six sons of the
Kaiser there is not one who is unable or unworthy from the autocratic
standpoint to carry on the traditions of the house. They are all
young men who in any field of human endeavour are more than a
match for men of their age, and by reason of these qualities,
so rare in kings and princes, it has been easy to arouse a great
feeling of devotion for the royal house of Prussia among all classes
in Germany, with the possible exception of the Social Democrats.
The other kings and princes of Germany have been overshadowed,
mere puppets in the king business, by the surpassing talents of
the Hohenzollerns, and so the task of those who, in Germany and
out, hope for that evolution towards liberalism or even democracy
which alone can make the nations of the world feel safe in making
peace with Germany, is beset with numerous difficulties.

Before the war the Emperor turned much of his enterprising
talent into peaceful channels, into the development of commercial
and industrial Germany. No one has a greater respect for wealth
and commercial success than the Emperor. He would have made a
wonderful success as a man of business. He ought to be the richest
person in the Empire, but the militaristic system which he fostered
gave that distinction to another. For the richest person in Germany
before the war was Frau Krupp-Bohlen, daughter of the late manufacturer
of cannon. She inherited control of the factories and the greater
part of the fortune of her father and was rated at about $75,000,000.
It was a contest between Prince Henckel-Donnersmarck and the Emperor
for second place, each being reputed to possess about sixty to
sixty-five million dollars. Most of the Emperor's wealth is in
landed estates, and of these he has, I believe, about sixty scattered
through the Empire. The Emperor is credited with being a large
stockholder in both the Krupp works and the Hamburg-American Line.
What a sensation it would make in this country were the President
to become a large stockholder in Bethlehem Steel or the Winchester
Arms Company!

The earnings of the Krupp's factory since the war have been
immense and doubtless the fortune of the Krupp heiress since then
has more than doubled. The subscriptions to war loans and war
charities, thrown by Frau Krupp-Bohlen and the Krupp directors
as sops to public opinion, are mere nothings to the fat earnings
made by that renowned factory in this war.

And what a sensation, too, would be caused in America if the
Bethlehem Steel Company or the United States Steel Corporation
were to purchase newspapers or take over The Associated Press
in order to control public opinion! Yet the German nation stands
by, apathetic, propagandised to a standstill, stuffed and fed
by news handed them by the Krupps and the alliance of six great
industrial iron and steel companies of western Germany.

A question which interests every inhabitant of the world to-day
is, where does the ultimate power reside in Germany?

Where is the force which controls the country? The Reichstag,
of course, has no real power; the twenty-five ruling princes of
Germany, voting in the Bundesrat through their representatives,
control the Reichstag, and the Chancellor is not responsible to
either but only to the Emperor.

Consider, for a moment, the personality of von Bethmann-Hollweg,
Chancellor of the Empire for eight or nine years. He lacked both
determination and decision. Lovable, good, kind, respected, the
Chancellor, to a surprising degree, was minus that quality which
we call "punch." He never led, but followed. He sought
always to find out first which side of the question seemed likely
to win,---where the majority would stand. Usually he poised himself
on middle ground. He could not have been the ultimate power in
the State.

I have a feeling that the Kaiser himself always felt in some
vague way that his luck lay with America, and I imagine that he
himself was against anything that might lead to a break with this
country. What, then, was the mysterious power which changed, for
instance, the policy of the German Empire towards America and
ordered unrestricted submarine war at the risk of bringing against
the Empire a rich and powerful nation of over a hundred million
population?

The Foreign Office did not have this decision. Its members,
made up of men who had travelled in other countries, who knew
the latent power of America, did not advise this step---with the
exception, however, of Zimmermann, who, carried away by his sudden
elevation, and by the glamour of personal contact with the Emperor,
the Princes and the military chiefs, yielded to the arguments
of military expediency.

The one force in Germany which ultimately decides every great
question, except the fate of its own head, is the Great General
Staff.

On one side of the Königs-Platz, in Berlin, stands the
great building of the Reichstag, floridly decorated, glittering
with gold, surrounded by statues and filled, during the sessions
of the Reichstag, with a crowd of representatives who do not represent
and who, like monkeys in a cage, jibber and debate questions which
they have no power to decide. Across the square and covering the
entire block in a building that resembles in external appearance
a jail, built of dark red brick without ornament or display, is
the home of the Great General Staff. This institution has its
own spies, its own secret service, its own newspaper censors.
Here the picked officers of the German army, the inheritors of
the power of von Moltke, work industriously. Apart from the people
of Germany, they wield the supreme power of the State and when
the Staff decides a matter of foreign policy or even an internal
measure, that decision is final.

The peculiar relations of the Emperor to the Great General
Staff make it possible for him to dismiss in disgrace a head of
the Staff who has failed. But at all times the Kaiser is more
or less controlled in his action by the Staff as a whole and at
a time when the chief of the Great General Staff is successful,
the latter, even on questions of foreign policy, claims the right
then to make a decision which the Emperor may find it difficult
to disregard. This is because in an autocratic government, as
in any other, personality counts for much. Von Tirpitz controlled
all departments of the navy, although only at the head of one.
The Ludendorff-Hindenburg combination, especially if backed by
Mackensen , can bend the will of the Emperor.

Yet while the head of the Great General Staff may fall, the
system always remains. An unknown, mysterious power it is, unchanging,
and relentless, a power that watches over the German army with
unseen eyes. It seeks always additions to its own ranks from those
young officers who have distinguished themselves by their talents
in the profession of arms. What does it mean to them?

Fig. 2. THE IRON CROSS. IN THE
EXPECTATION OF A SHORT WAR THOUSANDS OF THESE CROSSES WERE DISTRIBUTED
IN FIRST MONTHS OF THE WAR AND THE PRECEDENT THUS ESTABLISHED
HAS LED TO THE GIVING OF PERHAPS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF THESE
DECORATIONS

It is January twenty-seventh, the birthday of the Kaiser in
a German garrison town. The officers of the regiment are assembled
in the mess-hall, the regimental band plays the national air of
Prussia, "Heil Dir im Sieger Kranz" (Hail, thou, in
the conqueror's wreath). (The music is familiar to us because
we sing it to the words of "America." The, British sing
the air to the words of "God Save the King." This music
was originally written for Louis XIV.) The health of the Emperor
is proposed and drunk with "Hurrahs" and again "Hurrahs,"
and then comes a telegram from Berlin announcing the promotions
and decorations granted to some of the officers of the regiment:
the most envied of all is, that younger officer, perhaps the student
among them, who receives the laconic despatch telling him that
he is detailed to the Great General Staff!

Then commences for the young officer a life of almost monastic
devotion. No amusements, no social obligations or. entertainments
must interfere in the slightest with his earnest work in that
plain building of mystery which so calmly, and with such mock
modesty, faces the garish home of the Reichstag on the Königs-Platz,
in Berlin.

Who decided on the break with America? It was not the Chancellor,
notoriously opposed; it was not the Foreign Office, nor the Reichstag,
nor the Princes of Germany who decided to brave the consequences
of a rupture with the United States on the submarine question.
It was not the Emperor; but a personality of great power of persuasion.
It was Ludendorff, Quartermaster General, chief aid and brains
to Hindenburg, Chief of the Great General Staff, who decided upon
this step.

Unquestionably a party in the navy, undoubtedly von Tirpitz
himself, backed by the navy' and by many naval officers and the
Naval League, advocated the policy and promised all Germany peace
within three months after it was adopted; unquestionably public
opinion made by the Krupps and the League of Six (the great iron
and steel companies), desiring annexation of the coal and iron
lands of France, demanded this as a quick road to peace. But it
was the deciding vote of the Great General Staff that finally
embarked the German nation on this dangerous course.

I do not think the Emperor himself, unless backed by the whole
public opinion of Germany, would dare to withstand the Great General
Staff which he himself creates. They are so much his devotees
that they would overrule him in what they consider his interest.

Whatever thinking the Emperor does nowadays is more or less
on his own account. There is to-day no shining favourite who has
his car to the exclusion of others. The last known favourite was
Prince Max Egon von Fürstenberg, a man now about fifty-four
years old, tall, handsome, possessed at one time of great wealth
and a commanding position in Austria as well as Germany, with
the privilege of citizenship in both countries. The Prince in
his capacity as Grand Marshal accompanied the Emperor, walking
in his train as the latter entered the White Hall at a great ball
early in the winter of 1914. The Emperor was stopping at the Prince's
palace in southern Germany at Donnaueschingen when the affair
at Zabern and the cutting down of the lame shoemaker there shook
the political and military foundations of the German Empire. Prince
Max together with Prince Hohenlohe, Duke of Ugest, embarked, however,
on a career of vast speculation in an association known as the
Princes' Trust. They built, for instance, the great Hotel Esplanade
in Berlin, and a hotel of the same name in Hamburg, and an enormous
combined beer restaurant, theatre and moving picture hall on the
Nollendorff Platz in Berlin. They organised banks, and the name
of the princely house of Fürstenberg appeared as an advertisement
for light beer. They even, through their interest in a department
store on the east end of the Leipziger Strasse, sold pins and
stockings and ribbons to the working classes of Berlin. As this
top-heavy structure of foolish business enterprise tumbled, the
favour of Prince Max at the Imperial Court fell with it. For the
Emperor never brooks failure.

During the present war Von Gontard, related by marriage, I
believe, to brewer Busch in St. Louis; von Treutler, who represented
the Foreign Office; von Falkenhayn, for a while head of the Great
General Staff and Minister of War, and the Prince of Pless, and
von Plessen with several minor adjutants, have constituted the
principal figures in the surroundings of the Emperor. Falkenhayn
fell because of his failure in the attack of Verdun, ordered by
him or for which he was the responsible commander. Von Treutler
probably told the truth; he was against the breaking of the submarine
pledges to America; and Prince Pless, who remains still in favour,
never took a decided stand on any of these questions. Prince Pless,
as Prince Max was, is rich. His fortune before the war, represented
mostly by great landed estates in Silesia, mines, etc., amounted
approximately to thirty million dollars. His wife is an Englishwoman,
once celebrated as one of the great beauties of London, daughter
of Colonel and Mrs. Cornwallis-West, and sister of the Duchess
of Westminster and Cornwallis-West. formerly married to Lady Randolph
Churchill, and now the husband of Mrs. Patrick Campbell, the well-known
actress. And therefore the position of Princess Pless has not
been enviable during this war.

Emperor William does not, like many kings and dictators, confine
himself in his search for general information regarding men and
conditions to the reports of a few persons. He always has been
accessible, seeking even to meet strangers, not merely his own
people but foreigners, thus escaping the penalty of those rulers
who shut themselves up and who have all their information and
thoughts coloured for them by the preferences and desires of prejudiced
counsellors.

The chiefs of the army are always in close touch with the Kaiser,
but he is consulted on army commands and promotions much less
than on civil and even naval promotions.

Always with him is the head of the Civil Cabinet, who advises
with the Emperor on all appointments and promotions on the civil
side of the Government, helping even to make and unmake Ambassadors
and Chancellors. Admiral von Mueller, head of the Marine Cabinet,
is constantly in the Emperor's company. He is a shrewd, capable,
reasonable man; for a long time Admiral von Mueller was against
taking the chance of war with America and perhaps, even to the
end, persisted in this course. After the fall of von Tirpitz,
von Mueller acquired more real power. But in a sense it is incorrect
to speak of the forced retirement of von Tirpitz as a "fall,"
because from his retirement he was able to carry on such a campaign
in favour of "ruthless" submarine war that the mass
of the people, Reichstag deputies, the General Staff, and all
came over to his point of view and von Bethmann-Hollweg, who had
brought about his dismissal, was forced officially to adopt the
policy first sponsored by this skilful old sea-dog and politician.

.

CHAPTER III

WHO SANK THE "LUSITANIA"
?

WHO is responsible for the sinking of the Lusitania, for
the deliberate murder which has always remained deep in the consciousness
of every American, and which at the outset turned this great nation
against Germany?

In the first place there was no mistake---no question of orders
exceeded or disobeyed. Count von Bernstorff frankly, boldly, defiantly,
and impudently advertised to the world, with the authority of
the German Government, that the attempt to sink the Lusitania
would be made. The Foreign Office, no doubt, acquainted him
with the new policy. Von Tirpitz, then actual head of the Navy
Department and virtual head of the whole navy, openly showed his
approval of the act, and threw all his influence in favor of a
continuation of ruthless tactics. But a question which involved
a breach of international law, a possible break with a friendly
power, could not be decided by even the Foreign Office and Navy
together.

The Great General Staff claims a hand in the decision of all
questions of foreign policy which even remotely affect the conduct
of the war. Similarly it was the duty of the Foreign Office to
point out the possible consequences under the rules of international
law; but when the question of submarine warfare was to be determined,
the consultation was usually at the Great General Headquarters.
At these meetings von Tirpitz or the navy presented their views
and the Great General Staff sat with the Emperor in council, although
it was reported in Charleville at the time of the settlement of
May, 1916, that Falkenhayn, speaking in favour of submarine war,
had been rebuked by the Emperor, and told to stick to military
affairs.

All the evidence points to the Emperor himself as the responsible
head who at this time ordered or permitted this form of murder.
The orders were given at a time when the Emperor dominated the
General Staff, not in one of those periods, as outlined in a previous
chapter when the General Staff, as at present, dominated the Emperor.
When I saw the Kaiser in October, 1915, he said that he would
not have sunk the Lusitania, that no gentleman would have
killed so many women and children. Yet he never disapproved the
order. Other boats were sunk thereafter in the same manner and
only by chance was the loss of life smaller when the Arabic
was torpedoed. It is argued that, had the Emperor considered
beforehand how many noncombatants would be killed, he would not
have given the order to sink that particular boat. But what a
lame excuse! A man is responsible for the natural and logical
results of his own acts. It may be too that Charles IX, when he
ordered, perhaps reluctantly, the massacre of St. Bartholomew,
did not know that so many would be killed, but there can be no
Pilate-washing-of-the-hands,---Emperor William was responsible.
He must bear the blame before the world.

Blood-shed in honorable war is soon forgotten; but the cowardly
stroke by which the Kaiser sought to terrorise America, by which
he sent to a struggling death of agony in the sea, the peaceful
men and women and children passengers of the Lusitania, may
ever remain a cold boundary line between Germany and America unless
the German people utter a condemnation of the tragedy that rings
true and repentant.

We want to live at peace with the world when this war is over,
to be able to grasp once more the hands of those now our enemies,
but how can any American clasp in friendship the hand of Germans
who approve this and the many other outrages that have turned
the conscience of the world against Germany?

To Americans in Berlin, the sinking of the Lusitania came
like a lightning stroke. No Bernstorff warnings had prepared us.
I believed I would be recalled immediately. In making preparations
to leave, I sent a secretary to see the head of one of the largest
banks in Germany, a personal friend, to ask him, in case we should
leave, to take for safe-keeping into his bank our silver, pictures,
etc. He said to my secretary, "Tell Judge Gerard that I will
take care of his valuables for him, but tell him also, that if
the Mauretania comes out to-morrow we shall sink her, too."

That was the attitude of a majority of the business men of
Germany. German casualties at that time had been great so that
the mere loss of human life did not appal as would have been the
case in a country unused to the daily posting of long lists of
dead and wounded. Consequently the one feeling of Germany was
of rejoicing, believing indeed that victory was near, that the
"damned Yankees" would be so scared that they would
not dare travel on British ships, that the submarine war would
be a great success, that France and England deprived of food,
steel and supplies from America soon would be compelled to sue
for peace, especially since the strategically clever, if unlawful,
invasion of France by way of Belgium had driven the French from
the best coal and iron districts of their country.

I do recall that one Imperial Minister, a reasonable individual
whose name I think it best not to mention, expressed in private
his sorrow, not only for the deed itself, but for the mistaken
policy which he saw, even then, would completely turn in the end
the sympathies of America to the Entente Allies. And there were
others, ---among the intellectuals, and, especially, among the
merchants of Hamburg and Frankfort who had travelled in the outer
world both on pleasure and business, who realised what a profound
effect the drowning of innocent men, women and children would
have on our peace-loving people.

Many of these men said to me, "The sinking of the Lusitania
is the greatest German defeat of all the war. Its consequences
will be far-reaching; its impression, deep and lasting."

The Teutonic Knights, from whom the ruling class of Prussia
is descended, kept the Slavic population in subjection by a reign
of physical terror. This class believes that to rule one must
terrorise. The Kaiser himself referring to the widespread indignation
caused by German outrages of the present war, has said: "The
German sword will command respect."

Terrorism --- "Schrecklichkeit" --- has always formed
a part, not only of German military inclination, but of German
military policy. I often said to Germans of the Government, "Are
you yourselves subject to being terrorised? If another nation
murdered or outraged your women, your children, would it cause
you to cringe in submission or would you fight to the last? If
you would fight yourselves, what is there in the history of America
which makes you think that Americans will submit to mere frightfulness;
in what particular do you think Americans are so different from
Germans?" But they shrugged their shoulders.

I have heard that in parts of Germany school children were
given a holiday to celebrate the sinking of the Lusitania.
I was busy with preparations, too anxious about the future
to devote much time to the study of the psychology of the Germans
in other parts of Germany at this moment, but with the exception
of the one Cabinet Minister aforementioned, and expressions of
regret from certain merchants and intellectuals, it cannot be
denied that a great wave of exultation swept over Germany. It
was felt that this was a master stroke, that victory was appreciably
nearer and that no power on earth could withstand the brute force
of the Empire.

Mingled with this was a deep hate of all things American inculcated
by the Berlin Government. And we must understand, therefore, that
no trick and no evasion, no brutality will be untried by Germany
in this war. It was against the rules of war to use poison gas,
but first the newspapers of Germany were carefully filled with
official statements saying the British and French had used this
unfair means. Coincidentally with these reports the German army
was trying by this dastardly innovation to break the British lines.
It was not a new procedure. Months before the Lusitania crime,
the newspapers and people had been poisoned with official statements
inflaming the people against America, particularly for our commerce
with the Entente in war supplies.

It was the right, guaranteed by a treaty to which Germany was
a signatory, of our private individuals to sell munitions and
supplies, but as Prince von Buelow once remarked on December 13th,
1900, in the Reichstag, "I feel no embarrassment in saying
here, publicly, that for Germany, right can never be a determining
consideration."

Indeed the tame professors were let loose and many of them
rushed into government-paid print to prove that, according to
law, the murders of the Lusitania were justified. A German
chemist friend of mine told me that the chemists of Germany were
called on, after poison gas had been met by British and French,
to devise some new and deadly chemical. Flame throwers soon appeared
together with more insidious gases. And it is only because of
the vigilance of other nations that German spies have not succeeded
in sowing the microbes of pestilence in countries arrayed against
lawless Germany.

Remember there is nothing that Kaiserism is not capable of
trying in the hope of victory.